THE WRITER Mario Vargas
Llosa, a champion of free enterprise and anti-Communism, has just experienced a colorful episode. While the polls predicted he would get more than 50% of the vote for president, he just edged ahead of an obscure candidate, the son of
Japanese immigrants,
Alberto Fujimori, who got
30% in the April 8 elections.
T HE ELECTION CAMPAIGN was started by Vargas Llosa two years ago. The prominent writer had the help of the best public relations experts in the United States, and he spent millions to inundate the media.
All this labor crumbled in the space of a few hours, for the benefit of an unknown candidate, a political newcomer, Alberto
Fujimori.
Nonetheless, everything had indicated that Vargas Llosa would win the election, with the support of the extreme right Frente Democratico (FREDEMO) coalition. The FREDEMO was made up of the two old parties that represent the ruling class in Peru, Acción Popular and the Partido Popular Cristiano, along with the movement formed by Vargas Llosa, "Libertad."
From one nightmare to another
Born out of the big bourgeoisie's revolt against the nationalization of the banks proposed in 1987 by outgoing president Alan García, FREDEMO presented itself as the alternative to the nightmare that Peru lived through under the aegis of the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA) '. In denouncing the populist phrasemongering of APRA, Vargas Llosa tried to show that García was dragging Peru down into crisis with a "left" program. The writer's line was to try to put the responsibility for the hyperinflation (3,000% in 1989), unemployment and rampant corruption in the administration not only on APRA but on 26 the left as a whole. No political force was able to resist International Viewpoint #184 • May 7, 1990
FREDEMO's steamroller. The Peruvian people did not want to vote for APRA, which had starved them. It could no longer throw its votes to the left. The latter had gone through a period of internal warfare and divisions that led to its breaking up. Thus, its forces were split in the elections between the United Left and its former leader, Alfonso Barrantes, who formed his own coalition, the Socialist Left. 2
The events in East Europe and the defeat of the Sandinista front in Nicaragua certainly had an impact on the voters. Finally, the municipal governments run by the left had brought no substantial improvement in the lives of people and tarnished its image. It was in this context that Mario Vargas Llosa's candidacy emerged.
Peruvian voters tired of politicians
FREDEMO exerted itself to project a promise of "change." At the beginning, the voters looked sympathetically on Vargas Llosa's candidacy, because they were tired of "politicians." The writer tried to present himself as different, claiming to be "independent."
But the backing of the classic parties of the right (including the party of former president Belaunde Terry) for Libertad detracted from his image. What change could be expected from the old hands of the right? Then, the big capitalists gave their support to FREDEMO, spending millions on its propaganda. At this point, Peruvians began looking for a "real" independent candidate, and they found "Cambio [Change] 90 and its standardbearer, Fujimori. He also talked about "technology" and promised "capital" to bail out Peru, like the FREDEMO. But he was careful not to give any hints of attacks on unemployment and the social gains of the masses.
APRA and the left, for their part, strove to expose FREDEMO's governmental plans, denouncing the arrogant speeches of Vargas Llosa, whose overconfidence led him to talk too bluntly. He made no bones about his intentions - economic "shock" treatement for the country, privatizing the national enterprises and firing half a million workers in this sector, abolishing security of employment, "regulating" the right to strike, splitting up the peasant communities, abolishing free education after the third year of high-school and so on.
Llosa spends millions on campaign
Most of all, Peruvians saw the millions the rich spent on this campaign in a coun try ravaged by hunger. That is what repelled them from Vargas Llosa and then attracted them to another candidate. The writer's public relations experts were unable to understand this phenomenon.
FREDEMO has accused Fjimori of not having any program. But APRA did not have any more of one when it took over the government in 1986. Moreover, Fujimori's line was more reassuring than that of the literary man. He did not want to privatize the nationalized sector, and he talked about social inequalities that stoked the fires of the Shining Path guerrillas and which had to be combatted.
Fujimori promised that education would remain free, that security of employment would be protected and, above all, that he was not going to apply any "shock" therapy to the Peruvian economy. This line reassured the Peruvian masses, but also some sections of the
DANCHO
bourgeoisie and traders who feared that excessive Llosa's "free enterprise" program would bring them to an economic situation similar to the Chilean or Bolivian one.
Vargas Llosa recognizes that he is poorly placed for the second round, and nearly decided not to run. He knows that on June 5 he will have a hard time topping 30%, while Fujimori can count on getting the APRA and left vote (respectively 20% and 11%), regardless of what the leaderships of these forces call for. He also knows that in order to apply his economic policy, he will need an absolute majority and full powers, which he will not get.
United Left pays heavily for split
The left came out of this election in a still more weakened state. First of all, it suffered a rebuff by the voters, with the United Left getting 7% and the Socialist Left, 4%; while before the split it got 30% in the 1983 municipal elections and 23% in 1986. Its administration of city governments did not involve any break with the system. It was not able to develop elements of direct democracy or attack the rich. Today, it is asking nothing more from Fujimori in order to call for a vote for him in the second round than that he clarify his program. As for the Maoist guerilla organization Shining Path, its sectarianism (it is more and more often attacking left activists) is isolating it. Its call for a boycott of the vote had very little impact.
APRA's defeat and the results of this election reveal the impasse in which Peru finds itself. If he wins, Fujimori will not be able to stand up to the pressures of imperialism or those of the big Peruvian capitalists. But the defeat dealt to Vargas
Llosa has shown the mass opposition to the ultra-free-enterprise schemes.
The Peruvian state is getting weaker by the day. Shining Path controls some areas of the country. The mass movement is resisting in important sectors. The army rules in whole regions (the number of deaths has risen in these last years to
18,000, and that does not include the
"missing"). In other areas, the drug traffickers rule the roost. This disintegration of Peru will continue if Fujimori wins, and it can wear him out very quickly. *
*Hugo Blanco, is a leader of the Mariateguista Unity
Party (PUM) and also has leadership responsibilities in the Peruvian Peasant Confederation (CCP). He was a deputy in 1983 and between 1980 and 1985. He ran in the clections for the Senate on the slate of the United
Left (a coalition including the PUM, the Communist
Party of Peru and the National Union of the Revolutionary Left, a formation of Maoist ongin).
1. APRA, the party of Alan Garcia, who was presiden It of Peru between 1986 and 1990. This formatior. 1 belongs to the Socialist Intemational.
2. The Socialist Left was formed by Barrantes, a former mayor of Lima and by the Revolutionary Socialist
Party (PSR), which left the United Left.